Seamline Tour with Rabbi Ken Spiro

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numerous kibbutzim built in israel starting in the beginning of the 20th century ramat rahel is quite unusual as it's the only kibbutz that's inside the municipal boundaries of a city in this case we're talking about the city of jerusalem and it's right south of the old city in a very strategic location before we talk about the location in terms of modern strategic importance we have to go back in time what's the kibbutz named after it's named after the matriarch rachel rachel who was one of the wives of jacob and if you read in the bible in the book of genesis she actually dies giving birth to her second child benjamin and she's buried the bible says on the bethlehem ephrata road the bethlehem efrat road and that section of that ancient road is part of a very important route that was traveled in the ancient near east through the land of israel if you look at a topographic map of israel you see that there's a coastal plain of israel on the mediterranean on one side all the way to the west and then down deep on the lowest spot on the planet earth to the east is the jordan valley but the center of the country has a spine a mountain ridge that runs from the south all going all the way down to around beersheva running through hevron through bethlehem to jerusalem up north all the way to the galilee that's the mountain range which in the center gets to a height of over 800 meters jerusalem is sitting right in the middle of that spine and this route from where i am looking down this way which is to the south going towards bethlehem and then towards cavron is called derek avot the way of the patriarchs and this is the route that was traveled by the patriarchs in the bible but because it's a central travel route and one of the things i talk about when i teach about history is that geography plays a huge role in history where you're located travel routes strategic importance between which empires israel is historically in the ancient world located between two great the earliest civilizations of egypt in the south and mesopotamia which is first assyria then babylonia then persia in the north so it's located right in the middle of great empires but where we are on this route is extremely important travel route this this mountain ridge spine that is often traveled throughout history by not only armies but by great important characters in our bible therefore it's extremely important to protect this route and throughout history going back thousands of years until the last century this route was a very fought over piece of real estate so the kibbutz is named after rachel who is standing on the road when the jews go into exile in the future in the babylonian exile in the book of jeremiah describes how she is crying for her people and begging god to have mercy on us the actual kibbutz was established in right outside the boundaries of jerusalem it came under attack in the 1948 war remember may 14th 1948 five arab armies declare war after israel declares its independence and our main immediate enemies are egypt to the south the jordanians and the syrians in the north ramat rahel was extremely important because it sits on this road below us protecting the access that armies invading armies in this case both the jordanian and egyptian armies are trying to come and enter the city of jerusalem from the south because the arab strategy in 48 was divide and conquer cut off all the different areas of israel into different bits and destroy each one and push the fledgling jewish state into the sea already at the beginning of the war of independence in may south of us south of bethlehem the ezzion block had already fallen to the jordanian army after a very difficult struggle and when the and when the kibbutz surrendered the jordanians killed all the soldiers who surrendered so this was the next target so we fast forward in the battle to july of 1948 and both the egyptian and the jordanian armies will converge on kibbutz from around us you can even see the remains of the trenches and we're sitting right above the road which is called the which is called derek havron the hevron road this road actually comes from the old city of jerusalem goes right to bethlehem and continues south all the way to geron there's where the road gets its name from there was an intense battle fought here many of the trenches and the buildings changed hands multiple times it was 80 jewish defenders basically taking on the jordanian army especially with armored cars and artillery and the best trained arab army in the middle east the jordanian legion after an intense struggle that mastered lasted many many days fighters primarily of the argoon were able to hold on to ramat rahel so the kibbutz remained within israel's hands and it's and since that period of time since jerusalem has expanded to the largest city in israel the kibbutz is now within the municipal boundaries of jerusalem we're standing here on the edge of the kibbutz looking out to sort of the south west you get a sense of how strategically important this location is not just in the war of independence during those three days of intense fighting when the israelis were trying to fight off the jordanian and egyptian armies you can see over there down below that is the hevrone road to the left of it up there is a monastery a greek orthodox monastery called mar elias which is the monastery of elijah the prophet that was a jordanian position the kibbutz was under israeli control from 48 to 67 but this was the border below us jordanian artillery was stationed over there in 1956 there was actually an archaeological convention going on at this site and the jordanians shelled the people who were here at the time killing six people and wounding another 14 people so that is right across the valley this shows you how close things were for those 19 years if we look past more elias you see on the horizon in back of us that's bethlehem bethlehem which is the tribal inheritance of judah this is their traditionally their capital city that's where king david is from right over there today that is palestinian authority territory area a in addition to the modern kibbutz which is over in that direction founded in 1929 remember we're dealing with israel old is very different than america old and america's 1956 you know linoleum eisenhower period floor old and israel's thousands of years old and everything that is new in israel including almost all the arab settlement in the country is built over pre-existing settlement that goes back to the time of the bible and even earlier some of it so here we're standing in the archaeological site of the kibbutz which is actually are very rarely visited but very interesting site which is open all the time there's no there's not even a mission fee charge you can just walk in here and it spans a huge period of time of the early history of israel beginning in what we call the iron age the book of kings because this is so strategically important sitting on that road south of jerusalem in the patriarchs way it's been a fortified position and an administrative center what we're looking at here is the entrance to an inner gate of a palace complex there's a bit of a debate as in most things in archaeology as to exactly what the site was used for but we know that in the first temple period the latter part of the first temple period especially we're talking about going back about 2 700 years ago this was a very important administrative center in the tribal area of judah south of jerusalem it contains by the way some of the most elaborate irrigation systems found anywhere in this area so part of what you see here the remains of a palace complex going back about two thousand seven hundred years ago late for his temple period but if we look over on this side and this area was used during the time of that iron age first temple period which corresponds to assyrian babylonian persian up to the destruction of the first temple but then later it was reused all the way through the last thing we see from ancient times over here is the remains of a byzantine church which is a little less than like 500 excuse me 1500 years old so between what we see here and what we see here both of which look very old is about 2 000 years difference so christians in the byzantine period set up a monastery here and had a church in the same area after which this area largely went out of use and wasn't really reused until early jewish pioneers came during the british mandate in the 1920s and re-established a jewish settlement here so we've come back literally to the places that our ancestors lived thousands of years ago so clear proof of the jewish connection to the sight and settlement here is what you see around us we're right in the middle of what is believed to be that administrative palace complex again there's debate as with all things in archaeology archaeologists like rabbis don't necessarily agree at all as a matter of fact the sculpture that is over here off to the side is called the hypothetical nature of archaeology to because different archaeologists have debated what the site is but we do know what you see here over here are the capitals of columns these are called protoeloe proto-eloyian columns if any of you learned about capitals in terms of the tops of columns in greek architecture edoric ionic and corinthian that's from the classical period of greece what you see here is much older this is an architectural form that was taken from phoenicians so this predates greek civilization and we find these capitals only in very significant buildings from the iron age from the first temple period of israelite jewish settlement in the land of israel in the city of david the original settlement of jerusalem they found multiple capitals like this and here you see three of them sitting right up here on display recently between us where we're sitting now and the city of jerusalem which is to the north they found the remains of a beautiful villa just excavated last year and they found three miniature versions of these capitals buried intentionally in perfect condition but this is the center of an incredible administrative complex which served during that first temple period and the entire site much of which has been excavated is littered with pottery literally thousands of pieces of pottery lying on the ground it's like the history pouring out of the ground and this is what the land of israel and jerusalem is all about everywhere you walk even if it's in the present you're treading on the past so we've moved north from where kibutura matrakhel was closer to the old city of jerusalem and we're actually standing in one of the best observation points for a tour of jerusalem and for our seamline tour which has like with all the sites we've been visiting very important in ancient history and also in modern history this place is called the taielet or the haas promenade it's a spur like a hill that juts out towards the east from that hevrone road from that patriarch road towards the dead sea and if we were to pan off to the right you could actually see the mountains of jordan on the other side as we drop down to the lowest spot on the planet earth 400 meters over 1200 feet below sea level where the jordan valley and the dead sea is located but what really interests us is what's behind me over here you can see the end of what is called mount moriah which is the original city of jerusalem the hill on which jerusalem stands it's interesting in the in the psalms it talks about jerusalem the mountains surround you and here you can truly see that jerusalem even though it sits on a hill is surrounded by hills that are higher than it if you look further to the east which is off to the right you can see the three peaks of the mount of olives that mountain ridge which stands right above the steep drop-off down to the jordan valley below it between the city of jerusalem you're going to have what's called the kidron valley rising up to the hills of jerusalem you can see the gold dome and the southern wall of the temple mount but the original city of jerusalem is actually the area that is towards us to the south below that gold and black dome that you see in the background the reason why this site is so important of course jerusalem is our one and only spiritual and political capital the place that is mentioned more than 667 times in the hebrew bible we are jerusalem obsessed people because that's the place it's the nexus the meeting spot between the physical and the metaphysical the place where you can most naturally connect to god on the planet earth and therefore the logical place to build the holiest spot in the world for the jewish people which is going to be the temple and two temples are going to stand on that site a first and second temple for a total of 830 years and even without a temple being in jerusalem jerusalem is still the place to which we all pray towards the center the heart the spiritual soul of the jewish people the holy city we already talked about rachel dying on the bethlehem ephrath road but if we rewind earlier to the beginning the patriarch and the matriarch of the jewish people who are abraham and sarah abraham who is living in the south is told in genesis chapter 22 to take your son your only son and go to the place that i will show you and he's all the way south of here he saddles his donkey travels for three days on the third day he sees the place from afar and this is almost certainly the place where he's seeing jerusalem from because when you're coming from the south along that patriarchs road this is the southernmost place you could spot the city of jerusalem from so that incredibly important story where we're first connected to jerusalem takes place on this spot if we fast forward in history to the second temple period jerusalem as the city grows needs a lot of water and a series of aqueducts were built because south of us going down towards chevron is actually higher than jerusalem even though jerusalem is 750 meters above sea level it's almost 100 meters higher aqueducts work on gravity and in the second temple period during the time of the maccabees an aqueduct was built from solomon's pools which is a giant nothing to do with king solomon but a series of pools the size of four football fields that hold a quarter of a million cubic feet of water travel through aqueducts straight line it's 10 kilometers but as they twist through the mountains it's almost 40 kilometers and they go right below our feet is a 420 meter long tunnel that connects the water supply there to the city of jerusalem you see all the way in the distance over here later that aqueduct was expanded to another more than 20 kilometers from the city traveling 81 kilometers twisting and turning it brought water all the way from the hevrone hills all the way to the city of jerusalem but the last thing i wanted to focus on here is modern history because where we're standing is pretty much the dividing line between jordanian occupied territory between 48 and 67 which is over this way and west jerusalem which is in back of me which is off to the left of what you're looking at now but higher up on our ridge and a little bit off to your right is what's called a mononative the governor's mansion during the british mandate the british were here from the ninth early 1920s until 1948 the british built a basically a palace here for the governor to live in with a beautiful view looking over jerusalem in 1948 that building was occupied when israel became a state during the war of independence by the united nations took over that site and from 48 to 67 it was the headquarters for u.n in the middle east and they monitored the cease fire line but in the 1967 six-day war the battle for jerusalem began at that site when the jordanians started to shell on june 5th 1967 west jerusalem randomly shelling and then they told the un move out because that was the dividing place between israel to the west and jordan on the left you leave the position so we could attack that u.n just left and the jordanians crossed the cease fire line the jerusalem brigade will counter attack pushing them out of that governor's mansion and then coming from the south go up around encircling the city from the south meanwhile the paratroopers that we're going to visit in just a short while will do a circling maneuver from the north north of the old city surround the old city and enter from the rear through the lion's gate but right in back of us is where the first battle for the reunification of jerusalem in june of 1967 took place so we've continued our journey northwards and not only have we moved north but we've moved west out over that way was the haas promenade we got that really nice view looking at jerusalem from the south to the city of david now we're almost literally parallel the old city and we're standing above one of the valleys that traditionally was the borders of the city of jerusalem this is the westernmost valley which is the valley of ben hinom gay ben hinom which runs right below us there's three valleys that actually border the old city one actually runs through the middle of the old city of today the tyropian valley all three of those valleys met at the bottom to the south of the old city and then head out to the dead sea but we're standing above that gay benjinon valley which is by the way where the name hell comes from in hebrew ben he nom gehennam from a tradition that evil things like cho like canaanites and even some bad kings of israel passing their children to the flames of the canaanite god mullah were done in that valley so it doesn't have a great association but i wanted to point out what we're looking at a little bit to the south you can see where the the hevron road is coming down and running below the old city sort of right on the rim of the valley if we look off to where the cars are coming down over there right to the left side of those cars you can see a building which is today the mountain zion hotel it was a building built by the british in the 1930s a little known tourist spot is that from 48 to 67 the border that seamline border is running right below us over here and in order to get supplies and even evacuate if necessary wounded soldiers especially during the war of independence from mount zion which made which remained in israel's hands from 48 to 67 to a safer spot in west jerusalem they created a cable car in 1948 that actually ran out of the upper room of what is today the mount zion hotel 200 meters across the valley going about 50 meters above the bottom of the valley it was it was a short journey of a couple of minutes done cranking by hand and they would lower the cable in the daytime so jordanians sitting on the walls of the old city couldn't see it by the way in 1967 the city was reunified but only in the early 1970s and 72 did anyone reveal that the cable car was actually ever there today it's a small little museum i remember in the 1980s felipe petit the famous tightrope walker who actually walked between the twin towers multiple times going back many years ago actually walked right across where the cable was so that's a pretty interesting little factoid but if we pan our way up over to what is the mount mount zion over here you can see what is a german church called the dormition abbey with the steeple right there in the black roof all of that was actually controlled by israel from 48 to 67 so literally the border between jordanian occupied old city and west jerusalem controlled by israel in the israeli army was a narrow passageway to the left of that black dome between there and the old city walls and that's where the zion gate is of today now if we move over to this side now we can see the old city walls themselves and again the old city is about a kilometer square and you're seeing the western side of the old city walls from the southernmost part right over here which goes to the zion gate and if we pan up to the north you can see today what is the jaffa gate continuing all the way up to what is the northernmost section of the old city walls of today by the way these walls are the new walls of the old city remember new in israel is a lot different from new in america and old is really different these were completed in 1540 by the ottoman turks but this was where the jordanians were sitting for 19 years and sniping over to where we are today from 48 to 67 you couldn't stand here a jordanian soldier might take a pot shot at you from over there between us today is a beautiful park in a green area but that was no man's land with barbed wire and minefields so from 48 to 67 you could stand peering over some sandbags and look longingly at the old city walls if you're really lucky my parents did this when they visited israel in 1962 they got to go up to the door mission abbey to the top and peer through some sandbags and look down and you could see the top of the gold dome and that was as close as any jew and certainly any israeli could get to the old city of jerusalem so we're standing in what's called the amin moshe which is right to the west of the old city and in back of me if you could fly up in the air you'd see the old city walls you see a windmill here which i'll tell you about in just a second but this area is the first area of inhabitation outside the walls of jerusalem believe it or not even though jerusalem is the largest municipality in israel today before the mid 19th century no one lived outside the walls everyone was crammed inside the walls the majority of the population was jewish overcrowded blousy housing poor sanitation cholera outbreaks so a philanthropist by the name of moses monty fury who lived from 1784 to 1885 a very interesting story he married into the rothschild family he was the stock broker for the rothschilds he made a fortune during the napoleonic war retired at age 40 and lived to be a hundred years old he actually was a really large man who chain smoked chesterfield cigarettes and lived to be a hundred years old chesterfield used him as an advertisement smoked chesterfields and lived to be as old as moses monty fury but he spent the 60 years of his retirement doing good deeds for the jewish people around the world and and spending a lot of his money and other people's money to help the jewish people one of the things he did most famously was build the first neighborhood outside the walls right below us called mishkanot shananim he took the name from a sentence in the book of isaiah it was a small quarter with a couple of dozen apartments outside the walls clean water fresh air beautiful light the problem was it was so dangerous to live outside the walls because of marauding bedouin etc that no one would pay rent here so he said okay you can live here for free people still didn't want to live here so he said we'll pay you a stipend to live here so they paid people to live in much better conditions outside the walls yet they still would go inside at night to sleep because they felt it was too dangerous out here so that's the first area which is below us which today has been turned into a a beautiful like boutique hotel for official guests of the city of jerusalem another thing that montefiore built in along with that neighborhood of mishkan ochananim was a windmill because he wanted the jews to be able to grind their own green and set up a little like industrial area here outside the city walls so they built they brought the equipment by camel from jaffa and set up a british windmill here was british construction sort of like a jaguar which means it looked good but didn't run so great because it broke down pretty fast not only that there wasn't enough wind here there's maybe 20 days a year when the windmill would actually work right around the time of the war of independence the haganah the pre-state idf israel the army used this as an observation point to protect jerusalem the british didn't like that so they ordered it to be blown up when the british soldiers came to blow up the windmill they noticed on the plaque outside the windmill that montefiore was from ramsgate which was where their unit was stationed so they like they said they had a lot of sympathy for the guys that just blew up the top of the windmill in an operation that was jokingly called by the israelis operation don quixote after the story of cervantes when miguel cervantes when don quixote charges the windmill anyway it sat as a fake windmill for many years in 2012 christians reconstructed the windmill dutch christians if you're going to make a wind wheel you want to have dutch people doing it and it actually is a perfectly working windmill which in 2012 started grinding flour again although it's not used as such and today it has a cute little boutique wine store in the bottom a few years after montefiore died another neighborhood was built outside the walls which is called yamin moshe also taken from a sentence in the book of isaiah but also named after moses montefiore money came from the monte fury family foundation and this was the first large neighborhood built outside the walls from there the neighborhood continued to move into west jerusalem and jerusalem expanded outside of the walls from 1948 to 1967 these neighborhoods with beautiful views of the old city were probably the most dangerous places to live and therefore was like the cheapest housing because they were the walls of the old city with the jordanian snipers were looking right down on you of course as soon as 1967 six day war was over this neighborhood which was in very poor condition became one of the hottest real estate uh buys in the whole country and certainly in jerusalem and now it's been completely redone into a beautiful neighborhood largely owned by a lot of people who don't live in the country anymore and visit a couple of times a year but it sits right above what was that seen line and above the gay banhinum valley dividing west jerusalem israeli jerusalem from jordanian occupied jerusalem for 19 years so we're halfway in the middle of our our journey along this seam line today we started all the way in the south at radmatrachell we then moved to the haas promenade the taielet then we had a view of the old city from opposite the old city a little bit to the south and yamin moshe by the windmill and now we're actually standing at the jaffa gate we're going to end our little journey to the north of the old city at ammunition hill but now we're standing outside jaffa gate on a bridge which spans the road right outside the old city above the benginum valley this bridge is actually pretty new it's only a couple of decades old used to be sloping down into the valley a road but in back of me you could see the jaffa gate itself which is one of the eight gates to the old city again these are the new walls of the old city built in 1540 they're eight gates seven of which are open jaffa gate is one of the main entrances to the city historically the damascus gate was actually the most important gate but this gate in english we call jaffa gate because the road continues to the west out to jaffa but in arabic and above the gate is an inscription in commemoration of the ottoman sultan who built the gate sulaiman the magnificent in 1540 but it also says in arabic there is no god but god and abraham is khalil allah which is his friend and this game in arabic is called babel khalil the gate of the friend because the road when it heads south heads right along our seam line tour right down hevron road and goes to hevron and one of the things we do have in common with our arab cousins is where they're literally our brother from another mother because the bible tells us and the arabs also hold this tradition that they are descended from abraham's other wife hagar where we come from abraham and sarah and they call abraham he's their great grandfather also and they call him the friend so we understand the connection between the gate and our seam line tour if you look at the gate close up by the way you can see that it's full of bullet holes those bullet holes are from the 1948 war of independence remember the jordanians will cross their internationally recognized border and seize not just the old city but all the territory to the north and south of it which today they call judea and samaria or the west bank so this will be jordanian occupied territory israel will try and break through here in the 48 war and not succeed we will be successful in breaking through the zion gate but nonetheless the israelis will give up on holding the old city and the whole thing will come under jordanian control after 12 days of fighting at the beginning of the war of independence so our jordanian snipers would sit up on top of the wall there above all the bullet holes and randomly snipe down below us was no man's land this was all barbed wire and a minefield you couldn't travel here if you're on the jewish side of jerusalem the streets would all dead end at these big sniper barriers with sandbags warning you not to cross minefield don't stick your head over the top you might get shot so we're literally standing in the middle of that no man's land outside the walls of the old city in a place where no israeli could stand for 19 years so our seam line our border from 1948 to is literally wrapping around the old city it begins in the south by the zion gate separating mount zion from the zion gate by literally only a few meters was the entire distance it comes right in front of the old city below my feet in the gay banhinum valley which was that no man's land with barbed wire in a minefield the beautiful mamilla mall that is off to the left as you're looking which today is a great place to go shopping was an abandoned bunch of workshops for that entire period of time and only rebuilt in the last you know few years but wrapping up this way going north along that seam line which is today national park we come to what's called paratrooper square at the top there's a building that's half circle which is actually an old barclays british bank full of bullet holes that was the original municipality of the city of jerusalem which more than 20 years ago was expanded into a huge municipal complex but as we turn the corner at the top of the old city and start heading towards the damascus gate which is along that seamline border we come to a building right next to the city hall which was notre dame it is notre dame of today it was a french catholic hospice built in the very end of the 19th century and if you see pictures from what it looked like from 1948 there was buildings in front of the old city wall there was a narrow street separating west jerusalem from the buildings on the other side and again like at mount zion that was the distance between jordanian occupied territory and israel controlled west jerusalem right before the british pull out may 14 1948 a day before they leave they're going to basically abandon their headquarters the top of the street here was a large area was all sealed off by the russian compound with barbed wire and anti-tank elements to keep vehicles from ramming in it was called bevin grad named after the british foreign secretary ernst bevin who was a nice guy who actually kept holocaust survivors from entering the land of israel after world war ii so the israelis nicknamed the whole place bevin grad taking the name stalingrad and also bevin and putting it together into a huge fortified position the british occupied they pull out the day before they leave the country may 14th and then the israeli forces seize as much of those buildings as possible the ergun led the attack it was called operation kisloan which is operation pitchfork they will seize that notre dame building which is overlooking the old city wall the jordanians are trying to get in from the old city and make their way into the new city to destroy jewish-controlled west jerusalem fierce battles took place in that building which was very badly damaged also probably another reason why they took the name bevin grad because if you know the story of stalingrad there was literally house house fighting between the germans and the and the soviet forces in that battle so there was fighting within the building they were able to keep control of it and it remained in israeli hands for those 19 years as a fortified strong point position which overlooked the old city walls from the very northern part of the old city we're standing on what's called road number one with the light rail running right behind me as i speak and this is literally the seam line you can't get more seam than where we are now we've left the old city behind us we talked at the beginning of the tour about how jerusalem sits on this mountain range and there's this route we call the patriarchs way that runs from the south of the country through jerusalem up north we've now curved around the old city and we're now literally heading up north this is the main travel route to go up to samaria and then ultimately up to the galilee so strategically this is a very important place but we're literally standing on the dividing line between what was in back of me this was jordanian occupied east jerusalem from 1948 to 1967 and on this side this was israeli controlled territory so what separated the two sides was the area right here which during that 19-year period didn't look anything like this it was barbed wire minefield and a lot of damaged and destroyed buildings the good side of all that is because it was basically an open area they were able to build a large road and lay this really nice light rail down right in the middle in back of me is not only a couple of consulates and of different countries over here but we also have national police headquarters for israel if we would go up the road over here maybe a kilometer a little less even about half a mile we'd come to what's called the mandelbaum gate and this was a gate built by the house of a man by the name of simha mandelbaum who in the early 1927 wanted to get outside the old city remember the old city was really overcrowded and he needed some more room for his family so he moved outside the old city walls even though this is called east jerusalem and is associated with the arabs we have to remember that the majority of the population of the old city in the late 19th century was actually jewish and those quarters jewish quarter muslim quarter christian army were only created by the british to keep the sides apart but the old city was a mushmash of different peoples living together there's a lot of jews living by the damascus gate area he moved outside the walls and built his house out over there it was it became a very important defensive position being outside damascus gate there were major anti-jewish riots in it was used to defend the jews and keep the arabs from storming into maya sharim and in 1948 it was a very important defensive position for the hagana in july of 48 the jordanian commandos snuck in and blew the house up with 35 haganah members inside the house after the ceasefire the armistice agreement where this became the dividing line between the two sides of the city they built an international crossing point over there and the and this was you could cross from the israeli side to the jordanian side if you had anything stamped israel in your passport you could not do that the only israeli presence allowed to be on the other side would be twice a month because israel held on to mount scopus the original hebrew university campus which was over this line on the jordanian side twice a month the jordanians would allow a convoy of supplies to uh cross over to relieve the campus wasn't functioning but to relieve the the military soldier presence that was guarding the actual campus of course the the crossing point ceased to exist in 1967 after the six day war and now you just have like a sundial standing in the middle of road number one a little bit further up the street and a piece of remains of what is the mandelbaum house most of it was destroyed after 1967 and today they created a museum called the museum on the seam which is a museum dealing with social issues so we are literally on the scene now and we're going to go to our final destination the site of the most intense battle in 1967 for the for jerusalem which is ammunition hill so we're at the last stop of our seamline tour but this is certainly the most dramatic and intense place of all we're standing in a place called ammunition hill or in hebrew it gets its name from the fact that during the british mandate which ran from the early 1920s until 1948 the british had a police school over here and they stored the ammunition for the police school on this spot it's actually very strategically located right above the road we were just standing on and that's that main north-south ridge road from here you go up to ramallah so strategically if you wanted to block any forces from coming up north and coming to jerusalem just as in ramat rahel the kibbutz played a vital role in stopping the egyptian and jordanian armies from coming from the south this place was very crucial in 1948 during the war of independence israel tried to get this spot when the british pulled out they were not successful and the jordanian seized the spot and it was used as a fortified position by the jordanian legion in the war of independence this was a crucial spot to get a hold of strategically to block any arab armies that would try and come down from the north to get to the city of jerusalem in the the first day of the six day war was june 5th 1967 the paratroopers originally sent to the sinai thinking they would be needed there but israel knocked out the air forces of egypt and syria and jordan at the beginning of the war it was air supremacy from the start and the paratroopers weren't needed there so they were brought to jerusalem now we have to remember this is it looks like an open area but we're the city's right around us it's like urban warfare almost here the israelis couldn't just bomb the site hit it with artillery fly over it with bombers they were afraid of hitting all the houses around the area so the paratroopers were brought up from the sinai and brought to jerusalem in the middle of the night they're walking through the city where the people are where the fighting's going on they had very little intel about what was going on here and how many soldiers were here they told me there was gonna be like 50 soldiers old guys it'll be easy it was the 55th brigade of the paratroopers about 150 soldiers they didn't know that there were 150 jordanian legionnaires of the al-husseini brigade over here this is the best arab army in the middle east at 2 30 in the morning they assaulted the police the police school and they found it empty but then they actually attacked ammunition hill itself and ammunition hill is sort of laid out if you've seen movies of d-day like a giant fortified position with trenches pill boxes crisscrossing fields of fire and you're totally exposed out in the open these paratroopers had to fight their way to the trenches you know the motto of the israeli army is ah the officers always lead so almost all the officers were killed or wounded at the beginning of the battle so the soldiers had to take the initiative and they literally fought through the trenches in the dark you in the trenches are curved you don't know what's around the corner the description is incredible what's going on in the during the fighting after the battle they actually made it an iconic song it's called the givata takmoshet it's almost a six minute long song and it has a refrain that repeats itself multiple times but in the middle in the background with the accordion playing you hear the actual soldiers describing the fight with [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] um now we're standing above some of the actual trenches that surrounded ammunition hill the central position is at the very top that's where the main bunker was you have to use your imagination a little remember there was no trees here none of these walls or bleachers were here this was an open area with clean fields of fire so the soldiers fight their way into the trenches and you can see they they squiggle and turn you don't know what's around the corner they're pill boxes some of the soldiers risked their lives and gave their lives to jump out of the trenches which is suicide to gives covering fire from up above in this little area which is i don't know a couple of hundred yards by a couple of hundred yards literally were four hours of close quarters often hand-to-hand fighting moving slowly through the trenches trying to get to the central position a lot of soldiers were killed or wounded in that four hours of combat [Music] standing at the top of ammunition hill this is where the climax of the battle took place and where the battle ended and we look around us you see how strategically important this area is you can see all of the northern area out to the west of jerusalem all the way up to nebi samwell the the tomb of samuel the prophet which is the highest mountain in judean mountain range we see how strategically important this road is to protect people coming in from the north or block any armies moving down this way what's really unbelievable to appreciate is that none of the houses you see around us here were here before 1967. this was a jordanian military position this was no man's land or controlled by the jordanians jerusalem was a sleepy little town before that divided city with one traffic light at king george and jaffa road once the city was reunified then the city exploded into now the largest single municipality in the state of israel today so the paratroopers fought their way up to the top of the hill where the jordanians were embedded in their bunkers being unsuccessful in actually storming the bunkers eventually what they decided to do was throw satchel charges and explosives and blow the bunkers up and with that the battle ended by the end of that battle 36 israeli soldiers paratroopers had died and 71 jordanian legionnaires had also died during the battle for jerusalem 182 soldiers died trying to take an jerusalem from the jordanians after the paratroopers finished on this spot they continued eastward taking the rockefeller museum and then coming in through the back of the lions gate there's a famous picture of matagur the commander the paratrooper standing at the top of mount mount of olives looking down over the old city once they entered the lion's gate they heard the famous radio announcement harabayat bayadenu the temple mount is in our hands once the smoke cleared and the battle was over and jerusalem was in israeli sovereignty this site became a memorial site initially visited primarily by the paratroopers and their families wishing to pay respect to those paratroopers who had fallen here later this became the national memorial site for the paratroopers every major unit of the israeli army has a memorial site where they commemorate those who fell in battle the golani has it up north summit golani at latroon you have the armored corps base this is the base for the paratroopers this is the memorial site for the paratroopers but not only is it a memorial site it's also the site where this unit the paratroopers when they complete their basic and advanced training after they've gotten their wings for doing their five jumps this is where they do their final swearing-in ceremony to get their beret to make them officially paratroopers my oldest son i had kids in many different units of the israeli army but he was in the hundred and first paratroopers division of the israeli army and after doing a 90 kilometer march overnight they came to the site showered changed into their dress uniforms and right down at the bottom of the hill they officially became members of the paratroopers in back of us you can see the memorial plaque with the names of the actual paratroopers who've fallen in israeli wars the largest number of names over there is of course the soldiers who fell here during the 1967 six day war to take ammunition hill fast forward years after the actual battle the paratroopers reunited after the peace treaty with jordan which took place in 1994 there was a reunion between the paratroopers who fought here and the jordanian legionnaires who fought here and they planted olive trees here in memorial for the soldiers who fell in the battle on the site itself so we've reached the top of the hill the end of our tour and it's a great moment to appreciate what a miracle it is that after two thousand years we have jerusalem a united city under israeli sovereignty no longer a seem line no longer divided but jerusalem the eternal permanent spiritual and national capital of the jewish people i want to thank you for joining me it's been a pleasure to have you virtually on the tour and i hope that you're able to come soon back to israel and back to jerusalem live and visit these sites and see them with your own eyes [Music] you